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Who likes cake?

The Madolche archetype is one that is near and dear to my heart. This Author has even topped a regional with this archetype (humble brag). This article wants to take a look at where the deck will be post Savage Strike.

Madolche Monsters

This card literally searches out every monster in the Archetype! In the Yu-Gi-Oh! community if we need to describe this cards effect to someone who hasn't encountered it before, we compare it to older cards that made a huge impact on the Meta. This card is similar to Element HERO Stratos, that when the card is summoned, the player searches his deck for any monster named "Madolche".

Having a card that searches in a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck is essential for most strategies. These types of cards are great for starting plays. Generally known as Starter cards, this type of card effect is good for assembling missing combo pieces from the deck.

There's the first problem...

The Madolche deck has suffered from two fatal interaction ever since the beginning of its release. First of all, the deck needs its normal summon. Madolche Magileine takes up that normal summon. When compared to the rest of the archetype, this is fatal. Especially in a Meta that has accelerated to the point where summoning a Magileine, searching and passing is not enough. There were some deck lists that decided to cut Magileine entirely in favor of hard drawing their combo piece. I personally think that is wrong.

...and the second.

The second problem is a proliferation of hand traps, and similar disruption. Disruption almost always brings these cakes to a grinding halt. It sours their batter to see a Veiler sky dive towards the grave in the name of Vanilla. Now their are cards like Ash Blossom & Joyous Springs and Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit to worry about. Trap disruption was huge when I first played the deck. So much so that I chose to run 3 Trap Stuns to turn off all on-field disruption. Yu-Gi-Oh! was a simpler time back then...

Starter #2

Madolche Anjelly is one crazy card. She accomplishes two things for the deck. All in one action. First, she sacrifices herself to the grave to Summon a Madolche Monster onto the field. If looking to add cards to your hand was good, she does it better by putting the monster straight onto the field. It's also very significant that she stays in the graveyard. Before Anjelly came out, Madolches had a problem, they could never stay in the graveyard. This will makes more sense later, but just know the second thing this tart accomplishes is staying in the grave.

Madolche Lonefire

Madolche Anjelly was designed around this type of card effect. This is probably one of the best type of starters in the game. This and similar card effects to this make Yu-Gi-Oh! what it is. Having access to multiple monsters opens the door to multiple decision trees. Anjelly is essential now for the Madolche Strategy because she summons monsters on field and sets up plays for other cards to combo off.

An Extension

This card is a MONSTER of a Card. The idea behind this card is that it needs setup before it can use its effect. This is known in Yu-Gi-Oh! as an extender. These types of cards extend your plays, but notably are not self-sufficient. They do not start combos or plays, but instead extend them to reach some type of goal. Madolche Hootcake is unique in its card design because the set back is he has to banish a monster from the grave to activate his effect. Every single Main Deck Madolche Monster says the following...

When this card in your possession is destroyed by your opponent's card (either by battle or by card effect) and sent to your Graveyard: Shuffle this card into the Deck.

This is the niche of the Madolche Archetype. The idea is that they are self recurring. They die to go back in the deck and be drawn to be played again. So that is where the interesting Hootcake dilemma comes in. How does Hootcake eat monsters if the stupid cakes don't ever stay in the grave?!? Hootcake's design is so interesting because he is clearly a plus one. You summon him, and eat a monster in grave and now you have two monsters. He gives other cards in the deck value by essentially giving every monster and additional effect. That is Banish this card from your graveyard to summon any Madolche Monster on the field as long as Hootcake is on the board. Seeing as the Madolche Monsters don't care for staying in the grave, (except Anjelly, more on her in a sec) that means that we have to revisit one of the Madolche decks mortal enemy.

Hand traps, or Hootcake Food

Thanks to the addition of Hootcake, we can now run Hand Traps in the deck instead of relying on simple on board traps. That is because Hand Traps not only disrupt the opponent on their own turn, but they also no longer are inherently a minus one. Imagine activating an Effect Veiler, erasing a monster effect, then following up with a Hootcake play that banishes that same Effect Veiler to extend your game plan to the next step. You end up with the same amount of cards after the Hootcake effect as you would have if you hadn't used Veiler in the first place. Incredible.

Mix all the ingredients together.

This card is insane. It's busted. It's nuts. It is all of the above. This card is a Starter and an Extender all in one. This card is self-sufficient, and it crucially doesn't have to take up your normal summon. Remember that one of the problem to this deck was that it needed to Normal Summon? This card gets around it. She checks the Graveyard, if you have no monsters, you can summon her onto the Field.

She reminds me of Wind-Up Shark, in that she checks to see if a condition has been met then Special Summons herself onto the field. This card may be just fine if that were it. But it doesn't stop there.

She also happens to be the Tour Guide from the Madolche Kingdom. This Tart is litcherally Tour Guide if Special Summoned. Wow. She summons herself for free (potentially) and then she can special summon another monster from the deck.

"Just a tiny bite, Thanks!"

Now Imagine this. You're going first. You have five cards in hand. One of which is Madolche Magileine. Remember that card that got cut from the recipe because it was too slow? Well, thanks to this new ingredient, Madolche Petingcessoeur, we can now Normal Summon Magileine, resolve her effect and search for Petingcessoeur. Oh look, no monsters in the grave! Activate Peting in hand to Special Summon, which will trigger her effect to special out of deck. Let's choose, Anjelly. Ok so now our field is Mageleine, Peting, and Anjelly. Still have 4 cards in hand. Ok, now we tribute Anjelly To special out Hootcake from the deck. Oh look, Hootcake has food in the grave to use his effect. So, that means we have Mageliene, Peting, Hootcake on board with Hootcake ready to eat Jelly to Combo Off! Wow. All of this is now possible thanks to the newest edition to the Madolche Menu, Petingcessoeur.

Muah! Magnifique!

With the release of the latest Legendary Duelist set, Harpie Lady Cards have received some powerful new support cards. This article seeks to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the newer support cards. The first card we want to talk about is Harpie Perfumer. She's essentially a stratos for the deck. When she is summoned she searches for a card the specifically lists "Harpie Lady" or "Harpie Lady Sisters" in its card text. This is an interesting new direction with in terms of card design. On the surface it makes sense why Konami would come to this decision. Basically they wanted the new support for the deck to be playable with the older core cards. For example, the card "Elegant Egotist" is one of the cards Perfumer can search, and honestly its probably the go-to card that most duelists find out of the deck.

This was one of the original cards that supported the Harpie Lady archetype. It has become common practice for Konami to build into its cards a function for them to find each other. Normally a card will search for another card given using the Name of the card. If Elegant Egotist were designed for an archetype that was designed today, it would probably be called "Harpies Mirror" or something along those lines. The key being that the word "Harpie" is in its name. The fact that Perfumer specifically searches and checks a cards text for the line "Harpie Lady" or "Harpie Lady Sisters" means that it can search cards such as Elegant Egotist without being bothered by the fact that the word "Harpie" is in the Name of the card.

Thanks to this new direction in card design, cards no longer have to be Named after their archetype. It breaks through the monotony of having to flick through a deck searching for a card named after an Archetype and instead looking to find a card that meets a separate sets of conditions.

So why the big fuss?

While flicking through a 40 card deck, it can be mind-numbing to just be looking for a "Harpie" card. Maybe I'm just bad, but it's nice to flick through and remind myself that I can search for an Alluring Mirror Split while resolving Harpie Perfumer. Also, fun fact; remember that Mai Valentine claimed have been psychic when really she was smelling the perfume on her cards to stack her deck? That's where the names Harpie Perfumer and Harpie Oracle come from.

Author

Saul AgisAccolades include a few Yu-Gi-Oh! Competitive Tops including one Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Top 32, and multiple Yu-Gi-Oh! regional tops.Co-editor of Road of the King by Patrick HobanNow enjoying life trolling locals and playing with puppies.